The purpose of this core is to provide molecular reagents and expertise including DNA sequencing, mutagenesis, library screening, molecular biology, software, protein chemistry reagents, peptide synthesis and protein sequencing technology. Consolidating these efforts in the Core will result in increased speed and efficiency in accomplishing the research tasks outlined in each of the three projects. Furthermore, an added and important benefit of the centralized Core will be to decrease expenses of the experiments compared to a scenario in which each project carries out separate molecular and protein chemistry experiments, which could require unnecessarily increasing costs for personnel and reagents.